Punishment And Society

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Punishment And Society

Introduction

Since the dawn of man, punishment has been an active part of society's cultural structure designed to teach society members about morally acceptable behavior and attempts to promote progress and harmony among its citizens. Punishment can be categorized into four forms: retribution, deterrence, incapacitation and rehabilitation. Retribution argues that perpetrators of crimes should be punished by imposing a level of pain or punishment equal to or greater than the pain suffered by the victim. Deterrence can be further classified into two forms: general and specific. General deterrence seeks to influence individuals prior to the commission of a crime through fear of the known penalty. Specific deterrence focuses on seeking to impose punishment on the individual for lesser crimes in attempts to deter repeating or escalating criminal behavior. Incapacitation serves to remove individuals from society to ensure the safety of its members. Capital punishment, commonly referred to as the death penalty, is the most extreme form of punishment imposed on an individual. It is currently defined as “the execution of a convicted criminal as punishment for the most serious of crimes. Despite its current definition, its use throughout history has not always been so clearly defined and limiting.

Discussion

Even before recorded history, early man formed tribal societies. These tribes were necessary to ensure survival in their sometimes harsh environment. Food, shelter and protection were afforded with increased numbers and banishment or shunning of an individual was used as man's earliest implementation of a death sentence. Although they did not actively execute the individual, loss of position in tribal societies were, in actuality, a death sentence handed down for crimes committed against the tribe.

As the use of capital punishment progressed, enforcement was administered through the principle of lex talionis: “an eye for an eye, a life for a life.” In this form, individual family members of victims were allowed to exact revenge upon perpetrators or members of the perpetrator's family to settle a debt. With no structure or rules, these “revenge style killings” were considered justified if the executor could substantiate their claim. The brutality with which these early executions were committed was limited only by the imagination of the individual involved. Because these sentences were carried out with little impartiality, killings could escalate into a blood feud between families sometimes spanning across several generations.

While arguably, the most infamous execution in history was the crucifixion of Jesus Christ outside Jerusalem, the first recorded execution was documented in Egypt in the 16th Century B.C. where a member of nobility was ordered to take his own life as punishment for practicing magic. Although no documentation could be found about how the individual completed this act, in its earliest days, non-nobility criminals were frequently killed with an axe. Over the years, the types of crimes punishable by death ranged from theft, marital infidelities, publication of insulting songs, perjury, rape, horse stealing, slave rebelling, piracy, treason and murder.

As executions became more public events designed to entice fear and compliance among community members, ...